Tears of an Angel
by choose joy xox
Summary: "I can't fix you. This is a battle that you'll have to fight for yourself, but I'll be there to hold you the entire time. You have to make the choice to get better, but once you do I promise you that I'll never leave you." What would happen if Spencer kept her promise and called Toby instead of taking the pills? Spoilers for 4x21. Read and review!


**Prompt: Ok after tonight's episode i neeeed you to write a thing where Toby finds Spencer in the middle of withdrawals and comforts her, takes care of her. And also that crystal rock deleted scene. Two separate fics or combined? Your choice.**

**I actually like this a lot. Let me know what you guys think, okay? Last night's Spoby? THE CRONUT SCENE WAS AMAZING. One of my favorites in a long, long, long time. And I adore that the Hastings are finally starting to accept Toby. Like I can't tell you how much I adore that. Potentially life making. BUT WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE ENDED WITH A SPOBY HUG? That's my only complaint. Oh and them deleting that crystal business. UM CAN WE SAY POTENTIAL PERFECT SPOBY SCENE? Gah. Well I kind of included it in here. Thanks for the prompt, anon. **

**Also, if you're waiting for Unchained Melody, this distracted me, but I'll get it up as soon as I can. Hopefully this is a nice distraction while you wait!**

SPOV

Two weeks.

It only took two weeks for her to get back to the place that she had promised herself she would never again be. It started innocent. In her mind it was justifiable. She knew how to control it now. She wouldn't let herself become addicted. How laughable was that? Here she was right back where she started.

Her parents had invited Toby over for dinner, and she didn't know how she felt about that. Why couldn't they have accepted him before this? Now he was welcome in the house, and it was the one time that she wasn't sure that she wanted to see him. How could she when she was so weak? That's not who she was. Spencer Hastings was the strong one. She was too smart to get addicted to drugs. At least that's how she wanted her boyfriend to see her.

What a joke.

As a cold chill rocked its way through her aching body she wrapped a thick blanket around her shoulders and cuddled into the red chair by her window. Everything hurt. Her hands were shaking like a leaf, and her head was spinning to the point that she wasn't confident in her ability to walk. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could handle.

Why had she given all of her pills to Hanna? She _knew _what withdrawal felt like. She should have kept one aside for an emergency situation. It was at that moment that she remembered the pills that -A gave her. Before she even realized what she was doing she was crawling across her bedroom floor on her hands and knees to grab her purse. Thank God she hadn't allowed Emily to take them.

She snatched the pill bottle out of her purse and wrenched it open, slowly taking a single pill out and rolling it over in her fingers. All she had to do was slip it between her lips. She didn't even need water. She only had to swallow.

The urge to take the pill was almost insurmountable, but then the worried face of her boyfriend passed through her mind.

_"Promise me you'll call me if you get the urge to take the pills again."_

He meant it, she knew that. But how could she call him? He was her boyfriend, not her caretaker. He didn't expect to have to spend half of his life making sure that she was okay when they began dating. And he shouldn't have too. She couldn't stop him from worrying about -A, but this she could control. All she had to do was take one more pill. Just one more and then she could stop.

_"How am I supposed to help you if I don't even know you're in trouble?"_

She was kidding herself. She knew that she was. If she took this one last pill it was going to turn into two, three, and then she was never going to be able to stop. She needed help. A cry of pain slipped between her lips as a cramp spasmed through her stomach. This couldn't go on forever. Right now she was having a moment of clarity, but it wouldn't last for long. She needed help. With one swift motion she smacked the pills out of her reach and grabbed her phone out of her opened purse. She quickly dialed the number that she knew by heart and waited for him to answer.

_"Hello?"_

His voice was already worried, and she hated being the one to do that to him. But she needed him right now more than she ever had. She couldn't do this without him. "I need you," she whispered into the receiver.

The pain from her stomach traveled up her throat, and she was afraid that she was going to vomit. She could hear panicked mumbles coming from the receiver, but she couldn't move. If she moved even an inch she was going to reach for the pills, and it wasn't an option. She couldn't. She was stronger than this. Her arms wrapped around her stomach and curled up into a small ball on the floor to await the help that she knew was coming.

* * *

TPOV

Two hours.

Two hours was all that it took for her to get to a point of desperation so intense that she called him. When he had told her to call him if she was in trouble he knew that it was a long shot. He loved Spencer more than life itself, but she had her fair share of fatal flaws. The greatest being that she was overly independent and stubborn as hell. The fact that she was desperate enough to call him was scaring the hell out of him.

His stomach clenched in fear as he walked up the drive to the Hastings house. If her parents were home they were being incredibly negligent in their duties, so he truly didn't care if he came off as rude as he just walked into their house. The worry that settled like a rock hard ball in his stomach was at an all time high. Was she okay? She had to be okay.

He took the stairs two at a time and slowed down once her door was in sight. The last thing that he wanted to do was to scare her by barging into her room. Instead he slowly opened her door and slid inside.

The sight of his girlfriend curled on the floor broke his heart. _Oh, Spencer. _He slowly walked across the floor and crouched down next to her. His hand lightly brushed across her sweaty forehead. "Spencer?"

"Toby?" The raspiness of her voice was much more pronounced that usual, which suggested that she had been crying.

"I'm right here, baby. Tell me what you need." She had to be in pain. He had never been addicted to drugs, but he could only imagine how terrible of an experience that it must be. Whatever happened he refused to be the cause of more pain for her.

"Get rid of them," she murmured, struggling to pull herself into a sitting position.

His forehead wrinkled in confusion as he gently grasped her upper arms to help her sit up. "Get rid of wha..." His words trailed off as his eyes caught sight of the spilled pill bottle on the other side of the room. Where had she gotten that from?

He returned his eyes to Spencer's face and studied her carefully. "Did you take any?"

A bitter laugh bubbled up from her chest. "If I took one I wouldn't look like I was dying. I really _want _to take one, which is why I called you as I was so sternly instructed to do."

He had never heard her voice sound quite so harsh, and it did nothing but increase his worry. He knew that she wasn't truly angry with him. He scooped up the pills and took them into the bathroom. If he just threw them away she would be able to get to them. Permanent destruction was the only option. One by one he tossed the pills in the toilet and flushed them into oblivion.

His next task was to figure out how to help the girl that he loved. Drug withdrawal was not something that he had ever experienced, so specifics were tricky. Her sweaty forehead was prominent in her memory as he ran a wash cloth under the cool water in the sink. The rest he could play by ear, but he knew without a doubt that he would do whatever she needed.

Cautiously he approached Spencer, who was in the exact position that he left her in. Her eyes snapped open as he approached, and her guarded expression softened immediately. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you. Apparently irritability is a side effect of the withdrawal medication." She shot a shaky smile at him and leaned a bit more heavily against the bed.

"No, no don't apologize. I understand. Can I help you move to the bed? It might be a bit more comfortable." He wasn't going to do anything without her permission. The fact that she called him for help signaled a new level of trust that he would do everything to preserve.

A shot of relief passed through him at her short nod. "Thank you," she murmured as she tried to contribute to the process of getting up.

He couldn't help but chuckle. When he said help what he really meant carry. One of his strong arms slid behind her knees and the other wrapped around her shoulders. He carefully deposited her onto the bed and placed her head in his lap. "You don't have to thank me, Spence. Thank _you _for trusting me enough to call me."

While he waited for her to speak again he carefully placed the folded wash cloth on her forehead. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No. Just hold me. Don't let me go."

He could tell from her voice that she was in pain, and he hated it. More than anything in the world he just wished that he could take the pain from her. Watching her like this was immeasurably worse than feeling it himself. "I'm not going anywhere."

His fingers slowly worked their way through her hair, untangling her damp locks. "I love you Spencer, and I promise you that I'll be there for you ever step of the way."

She sighed and grabbed his arm to use it as support to sit up. When he realized what she was doing he helped her the rest of the way up. The less strain she put on her body right now the better. "What do you need, Spence?"

"Can you reach into my nightstand and grab the yellow crystal tucked in the back?"

It seemed like an odd request, but he wasn't going to refuse her anything right now. He leaned over and shuffled through her night stand until his fingers touched what he was after. The crystal was pretty, but he wasn't sure why she wanted to see it. "What is this?" He asked her as he passed it carefully into her shaking hands.

"I got it when I was in group therapy sophomore year. Whenever someone holds it it means that they trust the people in the room and feel safe enough to share whatever's on their mind. I know you have questions Toby. Ask me what's on your mind."

The gesture almost moved him to tears. He did have questions, but he didn't feel like it was his place to pry. If she wanted to keep some things to herself then that was fine. She didn't have to tell him everything. "We don't have to do this, Spencer."

"I want too. I _need _to. Keeping this stuff to myself isn't helping anything."

He could feel her trembling against him. Before he asked her anything he was going to make sure that she was taken care of first. He reached behind them and tightly wrapped the fluffy comforter around her shoulders. A grateful sigh escaped her lips as she nuzzled her head against his shoulder. The blind trust that she placed in him warmed his heart. "Why did you start taking the pills?"

"It's- It's just really hard to be a Hastings sometimes. I know that's a terrible excuse, but it's the truth. I was tired of being in Melissa's shadow, and I thought that if I could just stay up a little bit later to do my homework I might finally beat her at something." Spencer paused for a moment to collect her emotions, and he thought about stopping her all together. But she said that she needed this as well, and he certainly wasn't going to stop her from doing something that she needed to do in order to heal.

"But it didn't work and I ended up as weak as I always was. My parents hated me even more, and Melissa had something new to hold over my head. And here I am being a disappointment again."

He leaned down and brushed light, loving kisses along the crown of her head. "Spencer, you could never be a disappointment. What do you need from me? Be honest. Tell me how I can best help you with this."

She paused for so long that he began to think that she had fallen asleep. Right when he was about to lay her down on the bed she began to speak. "You are the only person that made me feel like I wasn't a terrible person or a failure. You're the only one that was concerned about _me_ and not about how my problems would effect you. I'm not sure you could handle this any better if you tried."

His heart jumped in his chest as he buried her face in her hair. The love he felt for Spencer was intense and all consuming. He didn't deserve her, but he would never cease to thank the higher power that had seen fit to place her in his arms. She was everything. "Your friends are just worried about you. So are your parents. They just don't know how to deal with this."

"I-" she cut off with a groan and bent over at her waist.

"Spence?" His voice rang with alarm as his hands fluttered over her shivering frame, trying to figure out what to do; how he could help.

"Just a cramp, just a cramp. I'm alright," she murmured and pulled herself back up. His arms tightened around her with renewed vigor. He wouldn't let anything hurt her, even herself. She would be safe as long as he was around.

She hide her face in the crook of his neck. The clammy skin of her forehead worried him, but at least she didn't have a fever. "Toby, why do you do it?"

That confused him. "Why do I do what?"

"Why do you stay with me? All I am is trouble. I ruin things, destroy them even. You deserve better than this."

It was the most tragic thing in the world when someone as special as Spencer Hastings could not see just how special she was. For someone so intelligent she had very difficult time seeing herself clearly. "There isn't anyone better than you, Spence. It's been hard, but it's all been worth it. You don't ruin anything. You've changed my life for the better in more ways than I can could count."

He took her silence as needing further elaboration. That was fine with him. If all he did was talk her down from this massive pileup of categorically wrong thoughts about herself then he would consider it an evening well spent. "You saved me from myself, Spence. You showed me that I was more than the loner boy who was hated by the entire town. You looked past what everyone was saying about me, and you got to know the real me. When I was feeling insecure you wouldn't let me go back to the insecure, scared person I was before you. You showed me that I was worth more than what my dad, Jenna, or anyone else in this town thought about me. And you've forgiven me every single time I've screwed up along the way; when i failed so catastrophically in protecting you from -A, when I was too blinded by thoughts of my mom to recognize the deal that I was making with the devil, and so many more times. Please don't ever think badly of yourself Spencer, because to me you're everything. _You're everything."_

Her hand tightened around his, and he lifted it up to his mouth to plant chaste kisses on her knuckles. "I _will _be here for you Spencer. I'll be here every single step of the way. I don't care what Aria says. Or Hanna, Emily, or even your parents. They are _wrong _for making you feel badly about yourself, and they are wrong for not being here for you now. I can't make them see that, but what I can tell you is that you'll never be alone. I can't fix you. This is a battle that you'll have to fight for yourself, but I'll be there to hold you the entire time. You have to make the choice to get better, but once you do I promise you that I'll never leave you. You're so strong, Spencer. I love you so much."

That speech was much longer than he intended upon it being, but it was all things that she needed to hear. She needed to know what she meant to him. She needed to know that she was strong. But even more than that she needed to know that _she was loved. _He didn't understand why her parents didn't see that. She may need professional help, of that he was not yet sure. But what he was sure of was that she would beat this. And he would be in her corner the entire time.

He could feel her tears soaking into his neck. "Let it out baby. Just cry. You'll feel better, I promise."

Her gentle tears quickly transformed in heart wrenching sobs. The sobs tore through her thin body and straight into his heart. When was the last time she let lose like this? Everyone was so used to depending on her, and they expected her to do every task perfectly without complaint. When did she ever get a break? A single tear traveled down his face for the girl that was clutching onto his shirt like her life depended on it. She was there for everyone, but who was there for her?

His fingers ran through her hair as he held her as tightly to him as he could. "You're okay. I'm here, and I love you. I won't let anything hurt you."

It seemed like an eternity before her tears slowly tapered off into a soft wheezing. "Are you alright, Spence?"

She nodded against his shoulder, but her fingers didn't loosen from their tight grip on his tshirt. "Thank you."

Her voice was barely audible, but he managed decipher her meaning. "For what?"

"For being there when no one else was. I love you. So much. I know I don't say it often, but I mean it and I hope you know that. You're one of the only people in the world that I'm sure that I love."

The last intact parts of his heart shattered at her words. Someone so wonderful shouldn't be burdened with so much pain and doubt. "I know you do, baby. I know. I love you too."

No more words were necessary. She cuddled back into him, and he tightened his arms marginally. He was going nowhere, not until he was sure that she was okay. And he didn't care what anyone had to say about that.


End file.
